Giant Bomb News

Skarlet Will Bloody Up Mortal Kombat on June 21, Kenshi and Rain to Follow

Plus, a mystery kombatant is on the horizon!

It's probably little surprise to you to learn that NetherRealm plans to release Skarlet, the stab-happy new female ninja who takes Mortal Kombat character design to the next logical step of evolution by tossing around gobs of blood like Rip Taylor tosses confetti, on June 21st. After all, she's been known about for a while, and it's been a couple of weeks since we got new MK DLC. Finally, a new kombatant shall appear!

For his first fatality, Rain will run you over with a little red Corvette. For his second, he'll strap you to a chair and force you to watch Under the Cherry Moon.

However, that's not really the news. The news, courtesy of IGN, is that more characters have been confirmed to follow. Kenshi, the blind ninja that everyone was pretty sure would be the next to arrive after Skarlet, will, in fact, be the next to arrive after Skarlet.

More interestingly, Rain, the purple, Prince-inspired ninja who has been kicking around since Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 will follow Kenshi. Ed Boon had been teasing Rain for months on Twitter, and now it seems he and the team plan to make good on all that teasing. Oh Ed, you teasing teaser, you.

Even more interesting than any of that is the news that a fourth kombatant will follow Rain, though who that will be is currently a mystery. Anyone want to start bandying guesses as to who it'll be? Shinnok? Meat? Literally anyone else? Please?

For those wondering how all these additional characters will impact elements like online play and compatibility, NetherRealm has a plan. With each DLC character release, the studio will release a new "compatibility pack," which allows players with the DLC to hook up online against those who don't, and vice versa. These packs are free, and will also come with some new character skins. The first one, which will drop alongside Skarlet, includes new UMK 3-inspired skins for both Cyrax and Sektor. Again, you get these through the compatibility pack, so they're free, regardless as to whether you buy Skarlet or not.

I know Jeff managed to get his hands-on a playable version of Skarlet at E3, but he ran off to go interview Ed Boon before I could ask him how she handled. Don't blame him, though. It's important we maintain our "Minimum of three Ed Boon interviews per year" quota around here. I'm sure if you ask him real nicely, he'll tell you if she was any good or not.

It's probably little surprise to you to learn that NetherRealm plans to release Skarlet, the stab-happy new female ninja who takes Mortal Kombat character design to the next logical step of evolution by tossing around gobs of blood like Rip Taylor tosses confetti, on June 21st. After all, she's been known about for a while, and it's been a couple of weeks since we got new MK DLC. Finally, a new kombatant shall appear!

For his first fatality, Rain will run you over with a little red Corvette. For his second, he'll strap you to a chair and force you to watch Under the Cherry Moon.

However, that's not really the news. The news, courtesy of IGN, is that more characters have been confirmed to follow. Kenshi, the blind ninja that everyone was pretty sure would be the next to arrive after Skarlet, will, in fact, be the next to arrive after Skarlet.

More interestingly, Rain, the purple, Prince-inspired ninja who has been kicking around since Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 will follow Kenshi. Ed Boon had been teasing Rain for months on Twitter, and now it seems he and the team plan to make good on all that teasing. Oh Ed, you teasing teaser, you.

Even more interesting than any of that is the news that a fourth kombatant will follow Rain, though who that will be is currently a mystery. Anyone want to start bandying guesses as to who it'll be? Shinnok? Meat? Literally anyone else? Please?

For those wondering how all these additional characters will impact elements like online play and compatibility, NetherRealm has a plan. With each DLC character release, the studio will release a new "compatibility pack," which allows players with the DLC to hook up online against those who don't, and vice versa. These packs are free, and will also come with some new character skins. The first one, which will drop alongside Skarlet, includes new UMK 3-inspired skins for both Cyrax and Sektor. Again, you get these through the compatibility pack, so they're free, regardless as to whether you buy Skarlet or not.

I know Jeff managed to get his hands-on a playable version of Skarlet at E3, but he ran off to go interview Ed Boon before I could ask him how she handled. Don't blame him, though. It's important we maintain our "Minimum of three Ed Boon interviews per year" quota around here. I'm sure if you ask him real nicely, he'll tell you if she was any good or not.

So more ninjas and scantily clad female ninjas. Do they also have teleport moves too? MK is Duke Nukem'ing it up in 2011.

What the hell is that supposed to mean? I don't see how colour-swapped ninjas are equatable to asshole-protagonists.

I'm saying both are as relevant as each other in this decade.

Yeah, you're right, they both have no place in modern entertainment. It's not like MK sold nearly a million units in its month of release or anything. Yup, relics of a time long gone.

Nostalgia and torture porn will probably always have an audience. That doesn't suddenly make it any less pathetic that there are people resorting to that denominator among society. You'd figure that we as a people would move on from such things.

So more ninjas and scantily clad female ninjas. Do they also have teleport moves too? MK is Duke Nukem'ing it up in 2011.

What the hell is that supposed to mean? I don't see how colour-swapped ninjas are equatable to asshole-protagonists.

I'm saying both are as relevant as each other in this decade.

Yeah, you're right, they both have no place in modern entertainment. It's not like MK sold nearly a million units in its month of release or anything. Yup, relics of a time long gone.

Nostalgia and torture porn will probably always have an audience. That doesn't suddenly make it any less pathetic that there are people resorting to that denominator among society. You'd figure that we as a people would move on from such things.

So how long before we move passed pointless cynicism on web forums, oh keeper of the high-horse?

So more ninjas and scantily clad female ninjas. Do they also have teleport moves too? MK is Duke Nukem'ing it up in 2011.

What the hell is that supposed to mean? I don't see how colour-swapped ninjas are equatable to asshole-protagonists.

I'm saying both are as relevant as each other in this decade.

Yeah, you're right, they both have no place in modern entertainment. It's not like MK sold nearly a million units in its month of release or anything. Yup, relics of a time long gone.

Nostalgia and torture porn will probably always have an audience. That doesn't suddenly make it any less pathetic that there are people resorting to that denominator among society. You'd figure that we as a people would move on from such things.

So how long before we move passed pointless cynicism on web forums, oh keeper of the high-horse?

I don't think he heard you from all the way up there, man. It's a mighty high horse he's on, you should shout louder.

So more ninjas and scantily clad female ninjas. Do they also have teleport moves too? MK is Duke Nukem'ing it up in 2011.

What the hell is that supposed to mean? I don't see how colour-swapped ninjas are equatable to asshole-protagonists.

I'm saying both are as relevant as each other in this decade.

Sex sales, always will. Scantly-clad women in video games will continue to be the fore-front of many female protagonists as long as men keep thinking with their genitals and not their brain. But then again, half of us men have already merged the two and cant tell the difference anymore.

I thought I read somewhere that new kharakters would be $4.99 each or maybe it was $3.99 each.

They will be expensive but the other stuff is free so it almost balances out and the game is great either way. Still, I'll probably get at least two if not all of them.

I just can't figure who'd be a good 4th DLC character. I never hated Meat as a concept so maybe he could be the last one and they just update all his moves to fit in with the new game? It couldn't be Goro, could it? They wouldn't make it just be a boss character I hope

I don't know what it is about Mortal Kombat, I feel that Street Fighter is the better fighting game in terms of gameplay, no question. But Mortal Kombat (especially the new one) is made great by presentation, attention to detail, the near endless modes of gameplay, countless unlockables, and other more cryptic secrets some of which we probably don't even know about (or at least me).

I like Skarlet so far, a new character who doesn't seem out of place, just like when Juri was announced for SSFIV, they both seem to fit right in. Kenshi was probably the only post-MK4 character I liked to play as. As far as Rain, well, I almost hate to say this but I will never get tired of the ninjas. The more multi-colored ninjas, the better. I realized yesterday that the only characters I play are the ninjas, all of them, any character that used to be just a pallet swap of Scorpion is my kind of character. It's kinda like how I tend to stick to the Shotos in Street Fighter. I'm just used to the way they play.

But mentioning MK4, there is one character from that game that I always really liked: Reiko. Am I alone on this? Shurikens are awesome.

@BestUsernameEver: I've had difficulty connecting to matches online (PS3), but when I do there is some lag but it is negligible. After tweaking my network and router settings a little, I've found that all other fighting games I own have absolutely no lag, and I can always connect to a game, but MK is still iffy. Even if I find a guy who has a good connection, if I play more than three matches with him it eventually says the game session is no longer available.

I really have no idea about this, but I'm wondering if there are any special ports you could open to make the experience more lag-free. It's not like it's impossible for me to find a good match, but it takes a little more time than usual. Luckily there are tons of fun things to do offline in the game.